REVIVAL OF BORREGO SPRINGS IS NO DESERT MIRAGE

Hammered by the recession, the town is experiencing a boom of sorts in appearance and economics.

A new arts building has been built where an abandoned grocery store sat for years on the most visible lot in town, on Palm Canyon Drive at the town’s signature feature, the Christmas Circle rotary.

Several miles away, workers are fixing up La Casa del Zorro, the high-end resort that shuttered several years ago but recently was purchased and is scheduled to reopen May 1.

The Palm Canyon Resort at Montezuma Valley Road and Palm Canyon Drive, the business that most visitors first see as they drive down into the Borrego Valley, has recently come out of foreclosure and was set to go up for sale, and the Borrego Springs Resort, the largest in town, is also for sale.

“Everything seems to be moving in the right direction out there,” said Harry Pflueger, of Maxim Hotel Brokerage in Newport Beach, who had the La Casa del Zorro listing and is handling Palm Canyon.

“Things are looking up,” said Linda Haddock, the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce executive director. “I am honestly happy to say we are getting new energy, new investment in the community. There will be new owners. We have people who are not looking at exit strategies, but people who are looking at what they can do to enhance their investment and get a return on it.”

The most stunning visible change has been the old grocery.

“With the abandoned building and with our Borrego Village Association trying to revise and vitalize downtown Borrego, this was an obvious eyesore that needed resurrection,” said Jim Wermers, the leading donor and renovation consultant for the former Borrego Valley Foods building.

“It had sat rather derelict, and this is the best corner in town.”

Wermers sits on the board of the association and is vice president of the Borrego Arts Institute. He combined those two volunteer efforts, and he and his wife, Anne, purchased the building in 2011. Since then, the building has been gutted and reconstructed, based on blueprints from when it was built in the 1950s.

More than half the building now serves as the Borrego Arts Institute headquarters and art gallery. It has already become the community gathering place since its grand opening in January.

There are also plans to open a restaurant and cantina in the other part of the building, although negotiations are still ongoing.

The art gallery is all part of a push by the association to create a dynamic feel that will bring tourists to the community — not just to visit Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, but to experience a whole new Borrego atmosphere.

“We’re trying to have it become a multidimensional village with eco-tourism, bike riding, art, music and enthusiasm,” Wermers said.

This is the busiest time of the year in Borrego, with thousands of part-time residents enjoying the mild desert weather.

Borrego Springs has always been relatively empty during the blistering summers, and for this summer, at least, the art gallery will not be open when the thermometer routinely hits 110 degrees or more. That’s largely because the dozens of volunteers who staff the gallery are mostly snowbirds who clear out in the summer.